Given and Taken in Ink

Review: Robbers on High Street, Hey There Golden Hair [2011]

Robbers on High Street's third LP, Hey There Golden Hair, is finally out, and I can happily report that it is the band's best record yet.  Given and Taken in Ink has covered the band somewhat extensively; for example, you can read the heartwarming tale of mistaken identity in the lawless wild west of post-Napster mp3 downloading, a journey which led me to discover RoHS.  It was GTI's inaugural non-"hey, read my new blog!" post (i.e. the second thing I wrote about here).

Anyway, neither you nor anyone else cares about that.  What you DO (or should) care about is getting your hands on a copy of Hey There Golden Hair.  The band has always drawn comparisons to Spoon, mostly for the similarity lead singer Ben Trokan's voice bears to that of Spoon frontman Britt Daniel, but also for the fuzzy post-punk of their early demo and EP.  RoHS has been all over the indie rock map since then, dabbling in blues, jazz, and chamber pop.  It's why I (yup, gonna quote myself here..) once famously referred to Trokan & Co. as "the most versatile indie rock band around." But instead of any other modern band, it's the Beatles I hear most on Hey There Golden Hair. Oh yeah, I went there.

At times, the band's versatility can be maddening.  These guys have the ability to just shrug off the catchiest little tunes, like Tree City's "Love Underground," or bluesy epics like "The Fatalist."  And yet they were showing signs of lapsing into sullen lounge pop (e.g. half of Tree City, almost all of Grand Animals).  Each time, I remember thinking, "What the FUCK, dudes?  Rock out!"  But no, Robbers on High Street was like the pretty girl who will spend hours on the phone talking to you, telling you her every hope and dream, but under no circumstances will ever sleep with you.  What the fuck, indeed.

Not so anymore!  You are older, wiser, and have discovered a swagger you never knew in high school.  You have been around the block a few times and don't have the time, patience, or inclination to wait around for silly girls and their silly games.  And Robbers on High Street sees you for the man you've become.  You're desirable, champ, and you are gonna get some tonight.

First, there is not a slow song to be found on this record.  The band is full steam ahead, weaving keyboards, hand claps, a Hammond organ, and fantastic Daptone horn section into these dozen propulsive tunes.  There's a sense of unbridled joy in the music, a side of the band only hinted at on "Electric Eye" (the teaser single released over a year ago).  I never expected the guys to sustain that over an entire album, but Hey There Golden Hair never lets up.  Hell, there's a triangle on this record.  Yeah, triangle - an instrument which only the most badass of bands can handle.

Perhaps most satisfying, there is not a bad track on the album.  You already know "Electric Eye" and "Face in the Fog," and the band has released live versions of "Watch Me Disappear" and "Second Chance" (with the latter's studio version as one of the album's standouts).  It'd be silly of me to start listing off all the great performances on this record, as we'd quickly get up to a full dozen, but a personal favorite is "Monkey."  With chugging riffs and driving rhythm section, it's the closest Robbers on High Street has come to its early sound since 2004.  But I hesitate to make that comparison, as the band has gotten much better in the interim.  When it's common to the point of cliché for bands to release electrifying debut records but never recapture that energy on subsequent releases, it's great to see a band like Robbers on High Street continuing to get better almost a decade after its inception.

Second Chance:

Monkey:

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